


A Light in the Dark

by stvrmxra



Category: The 100
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Raven’s not okay, Starts after season 5 finale, Zaven is actually my life, sad!Raven, the whole thing is just angst, zaven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-08 18:04:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17391092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stvrmxra/pseuds/stvrmxra
Summary: After a few seconds of holding her trembling fingers, Bellamy turns and leaves, his steps dragging with grief as he closes the door behind him. The tears fall as soon as she knows he’s gone.Suddenly she was back on Earth, in the middle of a war, the reminder that death was hanging over her by a thread making a reappearance after being awake for no more than ten minutes.Or after being asleep for lifetimes.





	A Light in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This is really what I spend my time doing. Obsessing over tv show characters. 
> 
> I’ve spent a month working on this one, and I’m really proud of it. Please leave a comment with feedback and let me know if you like it!

Raven knew that the second that she went to sleep, the black would engulf her. 

Behind her closed eyelids was an abyss; it was a place where the memories of the past were free to come back and haunt her as soon as she closed her eyes, no longer held back by her constantly working mind fending them off. The countless deaths caused by their short time on earth would taunt her to do nothing short of torture her. 

She’d be trapped. Trapped in a sleep she couldn’t wake herself out of, with remberances that would hound her until she cried out, begging for them to stop.

There’d be nothing but darkness as far as she could see and the screams of the lives that were lost echoing in her ears. 

Nothing but inky, scary darkness. 

Ten years, that’s all it would be. Just a ten year-long nap spent battling the fear of the unknown.

But it was actually the opposite. 

There was no haunting, no screams of the damned, no crying out for the torment to stop. Just a quiet, painless sleep.

The mechanical whirring of Raven’s pod opening and sliding out of the wall beneath her woke her up from her restful sleep. The dim lighting of the cryo room is too bright for her eyes, and she squints as she turns her head to the person standing next to her.

Bellamy smiles, but Raven sees through it as easy as if she were looking through a window. She knows that smile. It’s the smile he uses when his world just fell apart and he doesn’t want anyone to know. 

Raven sits up, her back popping and her stomach dropping as she notices the tracks of fresh tears shining on his cheeks. Meeting his eyes, she sees the sorrow, the great heartache swirling like restless clouds behind his unshed tears. 

“Sleep well?” he asks, and if she wasn’t listening carefully, she wouldn’t have heard the tiny crack in his voice. 

“What happened?” Raven asks slowly, her mind not comprehending what could have gone so wrong for Bellamy to be this distraught. 

“Raven-“ he starts, but Raven cuts him off before he can lie to her. 

“How long has it been, Bellamy?” she asks as she pulls her legs out of the frosty chamber to face him directly, dread creeping it’s way into her bones as he sighs and lets his shoulders sag. 

“A hundred and twenty-five years.” 

Raven’s eyes close as that fact registers in her brain. They were asleep for _a hundred and twenty-five years._ A hundred and fifteen more than they anticipated.

“That’s not all, is it?” Raven asks, knowing that Bellamy wasn’t this destroyed about being asleep for over a century. 

“Monty and Harper...” He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “They’re gone.”

There it was, out in the air; it made the space between them heavy, and tears were in Raven’s eyes before she could completely grasp what he meant. 

Monty and Harper were _gone._

They were dead. 

Raven’s throat constricts with the strain of keeping her racking sobs at bay. How could they be gone? There was no way, unless...

“They didn’t go to sleep, did they?” Raven says with tears dangerously close to spilling, threatening to drown the entire ship. 

“No, they didn’t,” Bellamy says, his voice coming out just above a whisper, his hand raising to wipe new tears off his face. “But there’s something else I need to show you. Get dressed and meet me in the bridge.” 

When Raven doesn’t reply, her watering eyes focused on a point behind him, he grabs her hand in his and squeezes, telling her without words he’s here and he _knows._

After a few seconds of holding her trembling fingers, Bellamy turns and leaves, his steps dragging with grief as he closes the door behind him. The tears fall as soon as she knows he’s gone. 

Suddenly she was back on Earth, in the middle of a war, the reminder that death was hanging over her by a thread making a reappearance after being awake for no more than ten minutes. 

Or after being asleep for lifetimes. 

As tears fall and leave permanent cracks in her skin, reminders of all she’s lost, she grabs her clothes and brace from a compartment next to her cryo-chamber. The cryo-chamber that two members of her family didn’t use. 

Sliding lightly to the floor, careful of her leg, she strips her Eligius standard leggings and long-sleeved shirt for her own, more familiar clothes. Raven’s fingers make quick work of her brace, her hands moving out of habit to keep the demons in her head busy.

She stops to console herself at the entrance to the bridge, inspecting her reflection in the glass for any signs of her inner termoil. Deciding she looks as good as she’ll get, Raven steps through the opening doors into the dim room.

Her eyes immediately spot Bellamy and Clarke standing quietly next to each other with their arms folded across their chests. Who she doesn’t recognize is the third figure hunched in the pilot’s chair next to the computer. 

As she limps down the steps, her legs stiffer than usual from unuse, all eyes turn to her, including the pair from the person she doesn’t know. Raven meets Clarke and Bellamy’s anxious gazes as she approaches them, then turns to the third person sitting next to her. 

The boy rises with a nice smile, a genuine, _familiar_ one, and says, “You’re _the_ Raven Reyes. I’ve heard so many stories about you.”

That’s when Raven realizes why he looks so familiar. Because he’s the perfect mix of both of them. 

Harper’s eyes. Monty’s smile. 

“You’re their son,” Raven states, her astute eyes analyzing his face as it falls the slightest bit. 

“I’m Jordan.” He takes a deep breath, as if trying to figure out the right thing to say. “Mom and Dad talked so much, too much, about their time on the ring. How they loved it, how peaceful it was.”

Raven knows exactly what he’s talking about. How Harper and Monty didn’t want to leave the ring, how they were perfectly content with the war-free lives they had built themselves. 

“They left a video. Clarke and Bellamy have already seen it.” Jordan peeks up at Raven as he presses play, and she gives him a small smile before turning to the screen.

It was Monty, only about a year after they went to sleep, and Raven laughed when Harper came onto the screen with a sheet wrapped around her shoulders. The next clip began, and it was about two years later. Harper was pregnant, and the sight made Raven wish she could have been there with them. In the next one, Monty held a newborn boy up to the camera. _Jordan Jasper Green,_ the boy was called.

Then he was ten years older. He looked a little stressed, but mostly blissful. He looked like he didn’t have the thought of death constantly nagging his mind.

He told the camera about how the earth wasn’t back yet, and Raven rubbed her eyes with her fingers. Of course it would take longer than ten years for life to come back. She grins when he says Murphy was Jordan’s favorite from the stories he told, and she meets Jordan’s eye roll with her own. 

All of a sudden they were nearly sixty years old, tears in their eyes as they told the screen how the earth wasn’t coming back, and that they had put their son in cryo. The tears in Raven’s eyes thicken as Harper tells them to take care of her boy, and they finally fall loose when Monty tells them Harper had died. 

_”I wouldn’t be able to show you this.”_

Raven looks to Clarke and Bellamy as he says it, tears falling down her cheeks as her gaze shifts to the opening window. She approaches it as radiant, blinding white light begins to shine through the bridge, and her eyes widen as she realizes what’s happening. 

A new planet. With _two suns._

That’s what the Eligius III mission was. The search for a new planet. And it took them seventy-five years to reach it.

 _”May we meet again,”_ Monty says, and Raven holds in her sobs as a shaky “may we meet again,” passes through her parted lips. 

She wraps her arms around herself as she turns back toward the three, wiping away the pain of more losses from her face. Gulping, Raven faces Bellamy and asks “what’s the plan?” in a low voice.

“We were hoping you could help with that,” Clarke says, a wave of sheer will to get them down there passing over her ocean blue eyes. “We can’t wake everyone, only who’s most important.”

Raven meets Bellamy’s glance, and she sighs. “I’ll wake up Shaw. He knows the most about the ship.” 

“After you get him, I’ll wake up the rest of Spacekru,” Bellamy says, and Raven doesn’t miss the small twitch of Clarke’s jaw. “We can figure things out from there.” 

Raven gives a semblance of a smile before walking out, making sure to say “it was nice to meet you,” to Jordan as she passes. Once the doors shut behind her, though, the smile drops off her face like a weight that’s far too heavy to hold. 

She should have known they would do something like that. Raven remembers the minutes before she went to sleep, how confused she was when both Monty and Harper gave her tight, passionate hugs and said they loved her. 

_”It’s just ten years, guys. It won’t feel like more than a few hours,” Raven had said with a grin, despite her innermost fears roaring in her mind._

_“We know,” Harper had answered, smiling at her sister. “We just want you to know we love you.”_

_”I love you guys, too,” she said, squeezing the air out of them both before lying down in her pod. Raven lied there for a few moments before she adjusted her head, her line of sight catching a glimpse of Monty talking to a very solemn looking Shaw._

_The pilot nodded and said something incoherent, and as his spellbinding gaze came to rest on hers, a grin spread across his face like a star going supernova. Shaw limped his way toward her, his intelligent eyes mesmerizingly brown as he pushed a strand of her loose, wavy brown hair out of her face._

_“You’ll be fine, Raven,” he murmured soothingly as his smile dimmed it’s luster, seeing straight through her confident facade. “Just close your eyes and count to ten. It helps.”_

_Giving him a small smile, Raven did as she was told._

_One._

_She closed her eyes and invited the darkness in, the only thing fending off her nightmares being the picture of Shaw’s luminescence._

_Two._

_The hatch was nearly closed, and Raven’s heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings trapped in her ribcage._

_Three._

_Her mind went fuzzy with unconciousness, and she couldn’t think of what number was next._

_Four..._

Pressing the button on the screen, Raven opens Shaw’s cryo-chamber. It takes a few seconds for his eyes to open, but when he focuses on her face, her heart skips half a beat and an effortless smile creeps onto her lips. 

Undeterred by the smile, his brows furrow and his eyes widen, his hands going on either side of him to push himself up. “What happened?” he asks, guttural voice scratchy and deep from slumber. Her smile drops; no reason to pretend nothing happened when he knew right away that something did.

“Nothing went...according to plan,” Raven says, peering at her hands then meeting his eyes as the realization dawns on him. 

“How long?” he asks, running a hand over his short hair and holding his breath. 

Raven sighs. “A hundred and twenty-five years.” 

It’s different being on the giving end of big news and not the receiving end. She watches as Shaw releases his breath, brown eyes broadening and lush lips parting. 

The only word Raven can use to describe his expression is sad. _Overwhelmingly_ sad. The flame inside him flickers under the swift wave of blue melancholy, but she doesn’t see it for long as he hides it immediately with a look of concern. 

“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, Raven. I know that’s not what’s got you so troubled.”

Raven looks away, maybe a little too quickly judging by the flash in Shaw’s eyes. Every cell in her body feels charged under his attentive gaze, and she swallows before turning back to him.

”I’ll wait in the hallway while you get dressed. I need to show you something.” Raven puts her hand on his and squeezes, saying with her eyes they’re going to be okay and leaving him to change. Her skin tingles as he watches her leave the room, and she nearly collapses into the wall as soon as she knows he can’t see her anymore.

_You have to be strong, Raven. Don’t let them think you’re weak. It’s up to_ you _to get them down there._

Raven’s eyes drift closed as a deep breath calms her, and her head knocks backward into the wall. For a few seconds, everything is okay. Just black behind her closed eyelids. And just as she thought she could actually have some peace, the images fade into appearance.

“Ready when you are,” Shaw says, Raven’s eyes snapping open as his internal light pulls her out of the dark, antagonistic part of her mind. Pushing off the wall, they start their walk to the bridge in a comfortable silence.

“How’s your foot?” Raven asks after a minute, noticing there’s no boot on it.

“Good,” Shaw replies, kicking his right leg out in front of him. “I guess it healed while we were asleep.”

Raven smiles, and she feels his mahogany eyes analyzing her, checking over her face. Her cheeks, her eyes, her mouth: all scorched where his heated, burning gaze spreads. Suddenly, the feel of his passionate, unyielding lips reciprocating on hers flashes in her mind and makes her lips tingle, but before she can let desire fog her thoughts, they reach the bridge.

Clarke is the only one in the room when they arrive, and a small smile appears on her lips as she turns toward them. “Hello, Shaw,” she says, nodding slightly at Raven, who nods back. 

“We have something you need to see. Here.” Raven steps toward the computer, her untied hair blowing slightly in the breeze of her strut. Shaw cuts a glance at her as she presses play on the video, and Raven swallows and steps back. 

She plays with her hands in front of her as she sits through the video again, salty tears springing in her eyes. Raven wills and wills with all she has in her to keep the emotions in the far corners of her mind, but as they get to the last clip, a single pesky drop falls through a crack in the dam. 

Shaw turns to her with softhearted, tender eyes brewing tears, but they never fall as he turns to the opening window. 

The light was just as magnificent as it was the first time: astonishing, impalpable, luminous. Getting a closer look, Raven sees ivory whisps of clouds swirl over green land and royal blue oceans, with white lightning frequently crackling.

Shaw turns to her as the window is shielded once again, placing a comforting hand on her bicep. “Will you be okay?” he asks, sparkling eyes boring into hers, understanding how the pain of loss can effect someone. 

“Yeah. Of course I will,” Raven says, because eventually she _will_ be okay. But for now, the obscurity and ache of calamity will be at the forefront of her mind.

————————

Raven’s back cracks as she straightens it clandestinely, trying to ease her tense body without anyone—especially Shaw—noticing. Her leg cries out in protest to the lack of movement, and her stiff neck aches. 

They’ve been running system checks and surface analytic tests for at least a few hours now, and the arduous task of making sure the human race stays alive is starting to take it’s toll on Raven. Peeking to her right to make sure he’s not paying attention, Raven rolls her tight shoulders back and stretches her hands out over the keyboard.

“You have to take a break, Raven,” Shaw says from his chair a couple feet away from hers, fingers typing away on his keyboard and eyes not looking away from the monitor. 

“I don’t take breaks,” Raven replies, even though she wants nothing more than to stop what she’s doing and relax. 

“Everyone needs a break eventually,” Shaw says, finally turning to face her. “Even you.”

She mirrors his movement, her eyes steady and guarded, and says, “Not when the human race is at stake.”

He sighs. “These tests are nearly done, and we’ve already searched the entire ship for damage. There’s nothing left to do but wait.”

“I’ll find something to do,” Raven says, turning back to the unappealing simulation on her screen. 

“I tried,” he breathes out, standing and walking to the door. 

“Where are you going?” Raven asks, attempting at nonchalant. 

“Just because you won’t take a break doesn’t mean I won’t,” Zeke says with a shrug, grinning like he’s going to prove her wrong.

“Have fun.”

“You can join me whenever you want to.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He sighs and walks out, and after a second Raven realizes no one else is in the room. The buzz of machines is the only company she has, and suddenly she feels chest-crushingly alone.

Raven continues to type, though, her body urging, yelling at her stubborn mind to take a break. 

She finally gives in and stands when the remnants of her pilot’s phosphorescence fades from the room, leaving it cold and shadowy and void of hope.

Stretching her back, Raven shuffles out of the bridge and into the dreary hallway, the black fog of bereavement following close behind. Her friends could be anywhere, so she stops and listens for the voices of her friends through the howling voices of the dead.

Following the jubilant sound of her friend’s laughter, she finds herself in what must be the eating space. Bellamy, Clarke, Jordan, Shaw, and the newly awoken Murphy, Emori, Miller, Echo, and Jackson sit around a rectangular table, snickering loudly.

“Dammit, Shaw,” Murphy calls as he notices her standing in the doorway, a smirk plastered on his face. “We told you earlier to get her stubborn ass in here.”

Shaw leans back into his chair, his arms crossing over his torso—she ignores how _good_ his fitting black t-shirt looks stretched tightly across his broad chest—with a modest triumphant grin sitting on his mouth. “She’s here, isn’t she?” he retorts, and Raven rolls her eyes as she realizes that he _knew_ she would follow him if he left her. Her heart beats a pace quicker at the hidden implications.

“What are you guys doing anyways?” Raven asks as she approaches the table, taking the empty seat between Miller and Emori.

“Reminiscing,” Bellamy says, his normal smile brightening up his face the slightest bit. 

“Harper and Monty are gone,” Emori says, and Raven’s chest pinches. “We’re remembering them how they would want to be remembered.”

“One time,” Murphy starts with a grin growing on his mouth, “I walked into their room, and I swear to God I heard Harper say ‘yes daddy’ before I ran out.” 

The table erupts in laughter, and they giggle harder as they turn to see Jordan’s horrified expression. 

“I’ve walked in on them so many times I’ve lost count,” Raven says, leaning her elbows on the table. “But the funniest time was when-“ 

“I think I’ve heard enough about my parent’s sex life,” Jordan intervenes, and the room fills with snickers once again. 

As everyone shares stories, with Raven listening along and accasionally adding a tale of her own, the darkness that always follows her backs to the far corners of the room. Whenever it tries to peek out and find it’s way back to her, the sound of merriment pushes it further away. 

After a while, Raven snaps out of her content haze and realizes that someone’s missing from the table. The loss of angelic fluorescence suddenly makes her feel exposed, chills running goosebumps over her skin as the air becomes slightly less warm. 

Raven looks around the rest of the room, and when she doesn’t see him or his light anywhere, she excuses herself.

A confused look falls onto Raven’s features as soon as the door closes behind her, and her feet are on autopilot as they begin their journey. The shadows in the hallways fade the closer she gets, and she isn’t at all surprised when she finds him exactly where she thought he would be. 

Shaw looks peaceful as he stares out the window at the new world. Celestial sunlight surrounds him and his already fiery illumination, making the obscurity floating around her flee the room entirely. He doesn’t look away from the planet as Raven comes to stand next to him, but a dejected, heavy breath passes through his lips.

“I’m over two hundred and fifty years old,” Shaw says after a beat of silence. “My family has been dead for centuries, and everything I knew and loved has been gone just that long.”

The weight of Shaw’s words hits Raven like a punch to the gut. The fire in his eyes has dimmed considerably by the time he turns from the window to look at her, and without the light to keep the ghosts away, she can feel suffocation creeping up on her. 

“I should be feeling heartbroken about everyone I’ve lost. I should be feeling regret for all the bad choices I’ve made that have put me here. I should be feeling hopeless, that I’ll never find anything good again.” He looks down at their feet, and Raven’s heart thumps low in her chest as the silence covers them like a thick blanket.

While Raven was so caught up in her own grief and heartache, Shaw was just getting the time to mourn everyone he ever met before he left Earth the first time. Raven blinks slowly as it dawns on her just how self-centered she’s been since she’s woken up, salt stinging where it brims her eyes.

_“But I don’t.”_

He meets her eyes again, and this time, the flame behind his irises is brilliant and blazing. Raven’s eyebrows furrow in bewilderment, and his steady gaze remains focused on hers as he breathes in slowly.

“Instead of feeling grief or pain, I just feel the overwhelming need to protect _you._ ” 

Raven can’t help the self-loathing tear that slides down her cheek as her eyelids fall closed.

“Hey,” Shaw whispers, his hand touching her cheek as light as a butterfly’s wing. Raven’s eyes open as he wipes the tear away, his stare warm and fervent. “I know what you’re thinking, Raven, about what I just said, and I’m not telling you this so you can beat yourself up about it.” 

He sighs. “I know full well that you can defend yourself; you don’t need me to save your life. But you and I both know you’re trying _so_ hard to seem stronger than you feel for the sake of others.”

Raven’s throat clenches, her breath trapping itself in her lungs. Shaw just voiced her innermost demons as easy as if he was reading the cover of a book. Is it that easy to know what she’s feeling just by looking at her?

“I spent years in the Air Force, learning how to read people and know when their lying. I see through it every time you tell them you’re okay, that you’re fine.” His thumb caresses her cheek absentmindedly, a sigh escaping his parted lips as he looks to the floor and back to her eyes. 

“You know what Monty told me before I put you to sleep?” Shaw asks after a second of heavy silence, and Raven shakes her head slightly. “He said, ‘Raven’s been through more than any of us. She’s strong, and she does a good job at hiding her pain, but she needs you to be there for her. She deserves it.’”

Raven tilts her head back to the ceiling, a fresh batch of tears forming and threatening to fall. A sob claws and scratches at her throat, wanting to be released, but she swallows it back down along with the salty tears.

_Damn you, Monty._

“I don’t know all that’s happened to you or what you’ve been through. All I know is that you’ve sacrificed everything to be here today, and I want to stand by your side as we see what the stars have in hold for us.” 

Shaw looks into her eyes, searching for any sign of rejection or doubt. Raven just swallows again, keeping the hope at bay so it doesn’t take over just yet. “Everyone I love dies,” she whispers. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I’ve never been more sure about anything,” Shaw says, his empty hand rising to her neck, and Raven doesn’t get a chance to breathe before his lips capture hers smoothly.

The feel of his warm, gentle lips on Raven’s again brings a sudden calm to her raging storm. The harsh winds of fear and despair that ripped her to the core cease, and the clouds that had loomed above her disappear like they were never there to begin with. A faint red glow from the suns outside is all that she sees behind her closed eyelids, and a sigh of serenity passes from her mouth to his as their lips move slowly together. 

The first time they kissed, there was a war going on around them and a battle to be won the next day. That kiss was desperate and world-ending, dripping with the need to memorize each other in case they didn’t make it out alive. 

This kiss, though, was lethargic and enchanting. Alluring and soft. Raven has never felt as treasured and safe as she does in this moment, Shaw kissing her sadness away with the tantalizing sweep of his lips.

Raven’s hands find his cheeks, and she steps into him as all the darkness and reluctance that stuck to her skin like dried glue cracks and falls away, releasing her from her cage of dejection. Without the weight of death chaining her down, Raven suddenly feels as free as a bird in flight; boundless, plenary, incorporeal.

Shaw kisses her one more time, his fingers brushing through her hair, before he pulls away gradually. They weren’t on Earth in the middle of a war anymore; there was no reason to rush. 

He rests his forehead on hers, their breathing shallow in the little bit of space still between them. Raven’s eyes flutter open dazedly, her vision cloudy as she focuses on Shaw’s steady presence holding her together. 

Raven has gotten so used to the feel of shadows always surrounding her, she feels exposed when it’s light that floats around her perception in a heavenly haze. Now when she closes her eyes, there’s no abyss, no haunting, no ghosts, no blood and no tears.

Just scintillating, ethereal light. 

“Shaw-“ Raven starts after seconds of letting the new, fuzzy feeling wash over her senses, but he cuts her off. 

“Zeke,” he says, his eyes brilliant and pure. “I want you to call me Zeke.”

Raven grins, ecstasy rising within her and loosening depression’s grip on her heart enough to breathe. “Zeke,” she says, testing out the name on her tongue. His sparkling eyes flash, and Raven thinks he might just like it as much as she does. “Don’t die on me.” 

Though she said it in a lighthearted way, both Zeke and Raven know the underlying meaning is anything but. 

“I’ve made it this long,” Zeke states, brushing his lips against hers as his eyelids fall idly closed. “What’s another lifetime?” 

They come together again with the predictability of a wildfire, but Raven’s never felt more assured of anything. With Zeke’s mouth in peaceful tune with hers, she lets go of her heartbreak and dysphoria, even for just the time being. 

Raven has no idea what’s going to happen next. Death could stalk her like a starved predator would it’s prey, or they could find peace on the new planet and rebuild. Whatever happens, if she strays back into the darkness, Zeke’s flame of optimism and confidence will burn bright enough for Raven to find her way back to the light. 

Raven has no idea what’s going to happen next, but she knows that with Zeke, everything will be okay.


End file.
